I've been in the mood for blue. This weekend I made blueberry muffins, a blueberry cake and the embroidered Circles on Blue.

What set me off embroidering circles was some little placemats I made (also in blue) embroidered simply with running stitch 'bowls' decorated with lazy daisies. My nan taught me how to embroider when I was very young and I've always remembered the lazy daisy - it is so easy, but also so satisfying.

So I've finished the circles. I pillowcased it with two layers of cotton fabric so now it has a nice heavy substanital feel. I decided not to quilt it, but I did top stitch around the edges to help it stay in shape. 66cm x76cm.

 

 

Today is the Australia Day public holiday and it officially marks the end of the 'bum on couch' season for me. The Australian Open (tennis) finished last night and the last test match (cricket) of the season concludes today. It's not like I'm a big sports fan, but having these things on the telly triggers the feel of the long summer holidays from my childhood and must also send a message to my brain that it is ok to loll about on the couch for days on end.

The last couple of summers I've knitted my way through the summer, but this year its been about cooking, setting up the house and embroidery.

I'm not sure what I want to make next. I've certainly got plenty of UFO's to tackle, but I'm not particularly keen on them for some reason.

 

 

In Nhulunbuy there are very few places to get retail therapy.  There are two supermarkets, a butcher, a bank, a newsagency, a hardware/homewares store and 3-4 places to buy clothes.

One shop is a bit like a variety store, mainly clothes, some homewares, some jewelery, an area for baby clothes and up the back there are sewing supplies.  Net curtains, a few bolts of fabric, ribbons, notions etc... yesterday I saw that they had embroidery cottons YAY!!  I bought a trio of colours; brown, mustard yellow and a light green.  It is suprising how such a little thing can give so much joy!!  

I noticed that the label on the brown thread indicates that it was made in W. Germany.  Maybe they don't have a bit turnover of stock, but man, that's old. 

 

 

I'm using one of my favourite hand dyed fabrics which fades from blue blue to a tan blue up the other end.  I'll show a full shot when I've finished with the embroidery.

Before we came here I bought 3 little bottles from Mel Robson, a ceramic artist from Brisbane. For me, they are a momento of our transition from South to North.

I took the above photo with my new macro lens. I'm pretty happy with it!

Yesterday I made some felt placemats. A couple of years ago I bought some pre-felt batts from Fibre Fusion. These batts make this sort of 'picture' felting very easy as you can jump right in to designing and cutting out shapes without having to make prefelts first.

These go rather nicely with our little blue dining chairs and the red doors on the adjacent bookshelf. I knew all those home decorating blogs would rub off on me at some stage!

I thought you might be interested in seeing our new home in the town flats in Nhulunbuy, NT. Chris and I are very pleased with the way the flat has come together as we had been pretty worried that we wouldn't like living here because of the size and age of the accommodation. I like it as much as our old house, except I don't have my own workroom.

I haven't been very creative since I got here, I think I needed time to recover from the stress of moving (and it was suprisingly stressful), and get used to to being in a totally different place and a new job etc.

But have done a little bit of felting and embroidery which I will share with you over the coming days.